The Temptation of Jesus

How do we overcome temptation? How do we choose holiness instead of sin? Ask a group of Christians and many will point to Matthew 4:1-11, telling you to follow Jesus’s example and fight Satan with the Word of God. Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness does teach us how to fight temptation, but seeing Jesus as only an example to follow is an incomplete reading of this text. Before we learn to follow His example, we need to see how this text reveals Him to be the Savior of sinners.

Jesus: More than a Model

Throughout the Old Testament, the faithfulness of God’s people is tested. There are tests—such as the one Abraham faces in Genesis 22—and there are temptations—such as the serpent slithering up to Eve in the Garden of Eden—which they either pass with faithfulness or fail through rebellion. Though there are some, like Joshua and Caleb, who prove faithful, the Old Testament pattern is rebellion. Adam ate the fruit, Abraham took Haggar as a concubine, and Israel sang praises to a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Jesus steps into the same story to face the same test. He is not simply the next in line. He enters the story as the second Adam, the promised offspring of Abraham, and the true Israel. Like them, He faces testing. Unlike them, He doesn’t fail. Jesus reenacts the story of God’s people with one key difference: where they failed, He succeeds.

Links with the Old Testament Story

Satan’s three temptations help us see Jesus reenacting the Old Testament story. The poison in the serpent’s words to Eve was that God was somehow unkind and did not love them. His forked tongue claimed God has ulterior motives: “No! You will certainly not die…” The serpent continues to the woman, “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). Matthew and Mark place Jesus’ baptism immediately before His trial in the wilderness. As Satan slithers up to Him, the words of the Father, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased” are still ringing in our ears (Matthew 3:15-17, Mark 1:11-13). Satan attacks the Father’s love for the Son: “If you are the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3). He attempts to sink his teeth into God’s redemptive plan to save sinners through the suffering of Jesus. He offers Jesus the crown of glory by avoiding suffering and therefore questions the Father’s commitment and love for Him. This scene shares the tone of Genesis 3. It’s a crucial link helping us understand Jesus as the second Adam, who is faithful where the first Adam fell.

Jesus counters Satan’s three temptations with the Word of God, specifically from Deuteronomy 6-8. This serves as a model for us, which we’ll examine later, and functions as a link between Jesus in the wilderness and Israel’s wilderness wanderings. In the wilderness, their trust in God was tested and—despite God’s overwhelming grace and steadfast love for them—they often chose the easy road (the golden calf that their eyes could see), instead of the narrow road of obedience. In three ways, Jesus faces the same test.

The temptation to make bread claims He must satisfy His needs (Matthew 4:3). Satan tells Jesus that He cannot depend on the Father to care for Him, but He must care for Himself. It’s an echo of Eve hearing that she should take the fruit, of Abraham believing he should take Hagar as a concubine, of Jacob stealing the blessing through deception, and of David ordering a census to count His kingdom. Satan seasons this temptation with the lie that God cannot be trusted. Jesus counters with God’s promise “Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Our belly aches don’t tell the entire story. We don’t live by our hunger pains, but by obedience to God. What God gives is exactly what we need.

The temptation to leap off the Temple claims He has the right to avoid suffering and that He should make the Father prove He will keep His word. It’s a deliberate test put on God, much like the Atheist who says that God must do what they demand before they will believe Him. Jesus counters “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7). God does not bend to our will.

The final temptation claims that He can have the crown without the Cross. It’s a test to take the easy road, the shortcut to the Promised Land instead of God’s chosen path through the wilderness. 

For many, this temptation hits home. We cannot make rocks into bread and likely won’t find it appealing to jump from the top of the temple. Yet, we crave the crown without the cross. We want abs without a diet and exercise. Shortcuts to success, especially if they offer to remove the hard bits of life, are extremely enticing. 

Jesus is unmoved, and He reveals the emptiness of Satan’s promise. “Then Jesus told him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (Matthew 4:10). He chooses God’s way, especially when it means suffering, because He trusts the Father. The crown Satan offers is godless and therefore worthless. Jesus knows the true crown follows the road to the Cross. 

Satan takes three swings and strikes out. Jesus wins for Himself, proving He is the unique “Son of God.” He affirms the surpassing value of obedience to God and His steadfast love. Like David slaying Goliath, He also wins on behalf of His people. Jesus is the true offspring of Eve who crushed the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). Satan, therefore, has no claim over all who are in Christ. In Christ, God has defeated Satan and decisively proven His love for His people.

Before Jesus is our example, He is our Savior. He steps into the story as our champion, winning a decisive battle in our place, and then calls us to come and share the spoils of His victory. We can follow His example and combat temptation because Jesus beat Satan.

Steeped in Scripture, Equipped to Endure

Once we see that Jesus is more than a role model, we can learn to follow His example. Disciples walk the road behind their teacher and here Jesus teaches us two lessons: we will face temptation, and we have assurance of victory. Jesus teaches us to wield the Word of God against the testing of Satan. One dangerous, but sadly common, way to oversimplify this application is by using the Bible to fight temptation just like we take Tylenol to combat headaches. Jesus doesn’t do this.

When Jesus wields Scripture against Satan, Satan fires back, using Scripture against Jesus. He wields Psalm 91:11-12 against Jesus as “proof” that the Father would not allow any harm to come to Jesus, even if He threw Himself from the pinnacle of the temple (Matthew 4:5-6). Notice how subtle and subversive the temptation is—Satan wants Jesus to avoid suffering. Jesus came into the world to save sinners by suffering in their place. Satan’s twist is that such suffering is evidence of the Father’s cruelty. To put it differently, the deception behind Satan’s smile sounds like this: “Hasn’t the Father said you won’t strike your foot against a stone? Then why would He let you suffer?”

The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). We absolutely must unsheathe the sword to fight for holiness. But a skilled opponent can find ways to use your weapon against you. That’s what Satan tries on Jesus, and often how he battles Christians. Here is the passage Satan quotes in its original context:

“Because you have made the Lord—my refuge,

the Most High—your dwelling place,

no harm will come to you;

no plague will come near your tent.

For he will give his angels orders concerning you,

to protect you in all your ways.

They will support you with their hands

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread on the lion and the cobra;

you will trample the young lion and the serpent” (Psalm 91:9-13).

It’s not impossible to imagine someone in a Bible study group dogmatically declaring that any suffering is outside of God’s will for us, all while citing this passage. A quick scan with an ill-informed theological framework and this reading makes sense. It’s deceptive because it is almost true. It’s a very convincing costume of Biblical Christianity. God does intend good for us and does promise to be our refuge, but it twists God’s Word and uses it as a license for testing God’s honesty.

D.A. Carson explains, “Satan’s deceit lay in misapplying his quotation into a temptation that easily traps the devout mind by apparently warranting what might otherwise be thought sinful.”[i] Simply lining up a series of Bible verses won’t help against what Satan does here. Jesus shows that to endure the subtle deceptiveness of twisting Scripture we must be so formed by God’s Word that we can smell when something is off.

Jesus responds to Satan’s twisted Scripture, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Matthew 4:7). Satan ripped a passage out of context, out of the Biblical story, and created a wrong application. Jesus draws on the story of Israel, who complained when God didn’t take them to the Promised Land by the easy road but took them through the wilderness. Jesus will not be swayed. The Father’s love isn’t shown through the absence of suffering but by His presence through suffering, and His strengthening power to endure suffering.

Like Jesus, we need to use the Bible in combat against Satan. To do this well we need to be steeped in Scripture. Read the Bible as much as possible, ask questions, read good books such as commentaries and theological writings, and engage with people outside your tradition and generation. Don’t neglect the role of your church in your interpretation of Scripture. I firmly believe in the Protestant principles of the priesthood of all believers and sola scriptura, but neither implies that the Christian life is meant to be just me and my Bible. We have blind spots and make missteps in interpreting the Bible. Correction comes when someone in our Bible study says, “I don’t think Psalm 91 teaches that suffering is outside of God’s will for us. Let me explain why.”

Lining up scripture verses like Tylenol pills doesn’t work because it short-changes the formative nature of God’s Word. Jesus isn’t a model of proof-texting, but the example of someone whose mind, heart, and soul are so formed by God’s Word that Satan’s bullets leave no wounds. We can’t simply launch proof-texting grenades. Instead, to follow Jesus’s example, we must be deeply formed by God’s Word and therefore “transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2).

Conclusion

The account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is rich with help to endure temptation. While there aren’t demons lurking behind every temptation, Paul says in Ephesians 6:11-12, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.” Jesus goes before us and conquers “the cosmic powers of this darkness” and therefore we face temptation from a place of victory. If we are in Christ “the accuser … has been thrown down” (Revelation 12:10). Jesus is the champion in whom we are more than conquerors. He also puts a weapon in our hands: the Word of God.

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness reveals His victory over Satan. Christ is King.  What is likewise revealed is how He equips His disciples to persevere in faith when tempted. Armed in Christ with the Word of God, we have all we need to guard against temptation and pursue holiness.

References

[i]  D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 113.